Photographer in Colorado

The Santa Fe Arts District has plenty of murals especially in the back alleys. Last Sunday, I stopped in the area while running some errands. The mural on this wall has recently been replaced. The color contrast of purple and yellow on this new mural is especially striking; this image represents about a third of the wall.

Purple Face, Santa Fe Alley Mural.

Nearby is another mural of three jellyfish created by an artist with the initials M.A.D. Fortunately it was relatively cloudy and this mural was on a shaded wall, so the colors were especially vibrant.

Mad Jellyfish Mural.

Further down the alley, a streetlight post was advertising the “Rag Antique” store… or should that be “Rage Antique”?

Rag Antique.

The next alley is one that I had not previously visited. Here is a mural of a green dog.

Green Dog Mural, Santa Fe Alley.

While making this image, I was greeted by three “live” angry dogs. These dogs were barking at my intrusion from the roof of an adjacent building.

Three Angry Live Dogs.

These steel stairs had a lovely orange-brown patina that caught my eye.

Stairs With Rusty Patina.

Finally, I completed a circuit that terminated close to the first mural.

This mural follows a different theme to some of the other murals, with a flower bud against some background vegetation.

Flower Bud Mural, Santa Fe Alley.

This was located very close to the first mural, so I decided to leave the area and continue with some errands.

Modern office buildings offer interesting reflections in their glass windows. This is probably because the windows are not flat by are double-glazed and filled with a partial vacuum. As a result, reflections in the glass have more abstract feel. I pass by this building every day while walking to work. One can see the abstract, wavy reflections of the nearby building in the background.

Building Reflections, Arapahoe Station, No 1.

Inside one of the buildings are stairs that can be seen from the street. In this image, the strip lights that light the stairs have some unusual and irregular arrangement.

Stairs And Strip Lights Inside Building.

From another angle one can see reflections from the glass as well as the stairs inside the building.

Building Reflections, Arapahoe Station, No 2.

In this final image, a nearby building across the street, is reflected in the glass, as is the blue sky with some hints of morning clouds.

Reflections Of Building And Blue Sky In Glass.

For all these images, I used a longer zoom lens that allows a smaller portion of the scene to be included in the final images. This allowed me to include more detail of the reflections and less of the surrounding blue skies.

This afternoon, I headed down to the South Platte River to check out the bird life. This beautiful female Mallard was perched on a rock at the shore.

Female Mallard No 1, South Platte.

Mallards are unique in that they have a metallic purple “speculum”. This is that purple “flash” that can be seen above the ducks feet. When this duck is in flight, this appears as purple tail feathers. Here is another image of the same duck.

Female Mallard No 2, South Platte.

Off course, there are always Canada Geese to be found. I was intrigued by this pair of geese in front of the row of yellow bollards that lined the street.

Pair Of Canada Geese, Yellow Bollards.

This goose stared right at me before resuming eating.

Stare From The Canada Goose.

Here is the same goose, framed by two bollards.

Canada Goose, No 2.

Heading north along the river, this pair of Mallards were busy feeding. That is the male in the foreground with the female in the background.

Pair Of Mallards, Feeding, South Platte.

There were plenty of Northern Shovelers in the South Platte River. These ducks are very skittish and take flight before some of the other species. I attempted to capture a Shoveler in flight. This was the best image that made.

Male Gadwall, No 2, South Platte Northern Shoveler, In Flight.

The Mallards frequently start flapping their wings while in the water. Here is one image from a sequence of images that I made. Here one can see the purple speculum in the tail feathers.

Mallard, Flapping His Wings, South Platte.

Finally, there was a single male Gadwall swimming among the Mallards and Shovelers. As the sun was getting lower in the sky, plants along the shore were reflected in the water.

Male Gadwall, No 1, South Platte.

Here is a second image of the Gadwall.

Male Gadwall, No 2, South Platte.

Enjoy!

For this year,  I decided to start up my Project-52 images again. It has been a while since I last did a 52-week project (four years)! So let’s start with a bang with some color! On returning to work, I crossed to the other side of the street and found this colorful crosswalk by Fiddler’s Green.

Colorful Crosswalk, Greenwood Village, 2019

Close by is this colorful animated sculpture against a clean blue sky. By the time that I decided on the composition, the contrails of a passing jet plane entered the frame.

Sculpture, Blue Sky And Jet Plane, Fiddler’s Green

We had a couple of frigid winter days during. This caused ice to form on the pond in Fiddler’s Green. As I approached the pond, some of the Canada Geese started moving towards the water. I made image as they formed a straight line in front of the water. Fortunately, there was a beam of sun that lit up the geese in the water with an orange glow.

Canada Geese On Ice, Fiddler’s Green

Keeping with the theme of color, First Friday art walk took place on Santa Fe Blvd last week. I found these clay pottery works in one of my favorite galleries.

Colorful Pottery, Art Walk, Santa Fe Blvd

May the rest of the year be filled with color and many shades of gray.

Here are some images that I captured in November. Leaving work, an amazing sunset had started to develop. This is the first image that I made as walking uphill from the office.

November Sunset No 1

As I got closer to the next building, the orange skies were reflected from the office buildings.

November Sunset No 2

Here is the next cluster of buildings…

November Sunset No 3

Later that week, ice had started for form on the ponds at Tuscany Plaza. Soon after sunrise, I made this image that captured some of the reflections in the pond.

Pond Reflections, Tuscany Plaza

This ice on the surface of the pond was more interesting. The distant buildings were reflected from the ice.

Pond Ice Reflections, Tuscany Plaza

Looking back towards the plaza, the main building was reflected reflected in the ripples of the water. I like the effect of the ripples breaking up the fabric of the reflection.

Building Reflections, Tuscany Plaza

Enjoy.

This week, I headed off to California, to visit Death Valley and the Coast. The following images were made at Death Valley Junction, to the east of the National Park. The Amargosa Opera House is the main feature in the Plaza.

Amargosa Opera House

These front doors have a fun design.

Amargosa Opera House Doors

To the side of the Opera House, I included the two benches on either side of the blue door.

Death Valley Junction, Blue Door

Here is another image of the corner of the building in the plaza.

Death Valley Junction, Hotel

One wing of the plaza buildings is a hotel. At this point all the windows have red drapes to contrast against the blue windows and doors.

Death Valley Junction, Hotel Doors

The following day, I hiked up the Titus Canyon for about a mile. This is a canyon that may be navigated by one way traffic by vehicles. This image was made about a mile from the canyon “exit”.

Titus Canyon

On the way back to the campsite, I stopped by the Playa, to make some images close to sunset. This year the playa had plenty of white salts that had crystallized from the saline waters. This is quite different from images that I made in previous years.

Death Valley Playa

Yesterday morning, I headed out from Death Valley to the Alabama Hills, located near Lone Pine. After making images in the hills, I returned to Lone Pine soon after the sun sank behind the Sierra Mountains. The cloud formations at this stage were absolutely spectacular.

Alabama Hills Clouds

This morning, I made my way to Bakersfield through the road to Canebrake, that follows the course of the Kern River. The fall colors along this road were spectacular.

Fall Colors, Road To Canebrake

Across the road, was this lone Joshua Tree…

Joshua Tree, Road To Canebrake

In this image, I positioned the Rabbit Brush bush in the foreground.

Road To Canebrake

Later, as I made my way past Lake Isabella, I left the road to capture some more fall colors along the Kern River valley.

Fall Colors Along Kern River Valley

All for now.

During the month of October, fall colors came down to the metro area. Here are some images that I made while commuting to and from work.

Fall Colors, Greenwood Village

A couple of days after making the above image, we got a snow storm and a big freeze. Many of the trees dropped their leaves before the colors changed from green to yellow. I made this image of one of the green leaves that fell to the snow.

Victim Of The Fall Snowfall

Within a couple of days, the snow had melted and many of the fallen leaves had been cleared. At Samson Park, the early morning sunlight lit up the trees that were captured as reflections in the pond.

Fall Colors, Samson Park

Arriving at Arapahoe Station yesterday at the end of the day, I saw these two trees. The setting sun caught the colors of the red and orange leaves at the treetops.

Fall Colors Near Arapahoe Station

That sight was a fabulous end of a great autumn day.